When to Tweet & Post This Holiday Season

It should come as no surprise that e-commerce retailers turn to Twitter and Facebook more in December than any other month, but how do they stand out from the crowd?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud recently analyzed more than 3 million tweets and 2 million Facebook posts and found several key insights for the e-commerce and retail industry. For starters, as brands tweet more in the holiday months, consumers respond - nearly doubling the amount of replies to retail companies. The takeaway here is that brands should tweet often during the holidays. Salesforce's data indicates that in Dec. 2013, retweets for retail brands reached 27.1 on average (compared to the average of 11.5 for the whole year).

Salesforce also found that consumers are most engaged with retail brands on Twitter on Thursdays and Fridays, while Facebook engagement is highest on Fridays and Saturdays (see image - and click to zoom in).

While each brand should look at their own analytics and insights to find the optimal times for posting social media content, Marketing Cloud Data unveiled a peak in Twitter engagement from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. CST for retail and e-commerce brands. For Facebook, posting between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. CT garner the highest rates of likes and links clicked.